I find I'm amused and annoyed in turns by this. It's odd how the authorities have a fit of the vapours, supermarkets withdraw perfectly edible food from shelves (presumably to go to landfill, which strikes me as an enormous waste), yet we've probably been eating horsemeat in cheap freezer meals for years.

We're happy to eat Daisy the cow, but throw up our hands in horror over Dobbin the horse. We need to get over our British squeamishness. It's meat. It doesn't taste funny. It doesn't kill you. If it means cheaper meals in these poor times, it's all good. Just sort the packaging out to tell the truth.

It [the FSA] has also ordered Findus to test the contaminated lasagne for the veterinary drug phenylbutazone, or "bute".

"Animals treated with phenylbutazone are not allowed to enter the food chain as [the drug] may pose a risk to human health," it said.

To be fair, though, they are checking the horse meat for traces of drugs that could do us harm if it entered the food chain.

To be fair, though, they are checking the horse meat for traces of drugs that could do us harm if it entered the food chain.

Yes but how many of us are entering the 3.30 at Chepstow?

I don't have any issue with eating horse as long as I'm told.

I eat both fish and chicken, yet would be disappointed to find that my fish pie contained chicken as I served it to my pescetarian friends....I'd be disappointed if my chicken pie contained beef, as I was expecting chicken.

I buy beef because that is what I want. If I wanted horse, I would have bought horse.

Exactly

In which case why do we have a Food Agency? If it cannot do its job then it is not fit for purpose.